The Free Press

In June 2019, the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared before a congressional committee to make the case for reparations. Advancing an argument he’d laid out in The Atlantic years earlier, Coates contended that America owed a debt to its black citizens not just for slavery but for generations of plundered wealth. Over the next few years, the issue had grown in visibility, and slogans like “Black Lives Matter” had entered mainstream political discourse. “It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery,” Coates told the committee.

Six months later, Harvard University took up the cause when Harvard president Lawrence Bacow convened a faculty committee to excavate the university’s historical involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.

The committee, chaired by Harvard Radcliffe Institute dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, ultimately produced a 134-page report confirming the ugly truth that Harvard, like many institutions in the North, was run by slaveowners—among them four university presidents—and that its professors had advanced so-called race science, including eugenics, to justify the trade.

The report, issued in 2022, called on the school to “take responsibility for its past” and “leverage its strengths in the pursuit of meaningful repair.”

“Suicidal empathy” is a politically loaded term to describe a decidedly human phenomenon: a romantic belief in the power of compassion to heal all wounds. The suicidally empathetic person believes that trauma is the root of all evil, that those who hurt us can be loved into submission, that the goal of justice is to humanize rather than punish—no matter how ghastly the offense.

Which is why, when I think about suicidal empathy, I don’t first think about immigration, or criminal justice, or even the murder of an elderly man in New York City by a violent serial offender this past weekend.

Instead, I think about the NASCAR driver who, in 2005, was mauled nearly to death during a birthday party for a chimpanzee named Moe.

St. James Davis and his wife, LaDonna, adopted Moe as a baby in 1967 after his mother was killed by poachers. They raised him in their home in California as though he were their child, and they also made excuses for him, like a child, when he began biting people. He was just a baby, an orphan, a victim. “The honesty I see in Moe’s eyes is beyond anything I can compare to it,” Davis told the Los Angeles Times in 1999 after the chimp bit a houseguest, mauled a police officer, and was forcibly removed from their home and relocated to a sanctuary.

Since she was first elected to Congress in 2022, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez has made a name for herself as a moderate Democrat who is more than willing to disagree with the party’s leadership and to ignite the ire of progressives. But her biggest enemy right now—almost as big as a Toyota Corolla, in her words—is sea lions.

They eat four times as many salmon as the fishermen and Native American tribes from the Columbia River in Gluesenkamp Perez’s home state of Washington are able to catch in a year, she wrote in April in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Last spring, nearly 25 percent of the fish at a huge dam had sea lion bite wounds.

Gluesenkamp Perez denounced sea lions as “vermin” in a controversial post on X. But she isn’t backing down from what she sees as the only solution to the problem: making it easier to kill sea lions. Doing so will likely require help from Lutnick’s agency and action by Congress.

Why did Gluesenkamp Perez declare war on sea lions? Are they a campaign issue in her reelection bid in a very purple district stretching from the Pacific coast to the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, to the edge of Mount Rainier? I asked her about all this and more. Her responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

When President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet in Beijing later this week, there will be a lot to discuss: war, peace, Iran, Taiwan, trade. Trump has vowed to bring up another issue too: the case of Ezra Jin. A Christian pastor and the leader of the Zion Church, Jin was arrested by Chinese police in October and his family hasn’t been able to speak with him since.

Frannie Block has been following the case ever since Jin’s arrest, and has obtained exclusive access to never-before-seen footage of Chinese police arresting Christians, audio recordings of police interrogations, and testimonies from those who have witnessed the raids firsthand.

Jin’s case has become a flashpoint for the Communist Party’s attempt to control the most intimate part of its countrymen’s minds: their relationship with God. Read Frannie’s story—and watch her video report—on the Chinese Communist Party’s war on Christianity.

—The Editors

The 20-foot-tall image of Mao Zedong looks down at the line of people snaking through the vast square in the heart of Beijing. On the busiest days, they stand four or five people wide, waiting hours for their chance to get inside the gold and white marbled hall that holds his embalmed corpse. Draped across his body, which sits in a clear crystal coffin, is a red flag imprinted with a hammer and sickle in the top corner.

More than 50 years after Mao’s failed economic and social policies thrust his country into poverty, famine, and chaos, any image, any reference to him, is still revered. Mao Zedong Thought (毛泽东思想 Mao Ze Dong Si Xiang), his version of communism, still forms the foundation of China’s constitution.

Neither famine, chaos, nor coup attempts could bring down Mao’s reign in China. What could possibly threaten the power and legacy of a man—and an ideology—elevated to such a god-like status?

What do your comments say about you?

Years ago, early in my life as a public writer, and soon after comment sections became common in online publications, I published a very earnest article about the importance of loving one’s ideological foes. By that, I did not mean to tolerate our enemies or coexist with them in a bumper-sticker way; rather, as Jesus taught, to love them, no matter how their views make us feel. I genuinely believed the essay would be helpful, provocative in a constructive way, and I eagerly anticipated the response.

As soon as it was published, like a newborn lamb wandering into a den of hyenas, I clicked on the feedback section.

The first comment? “Arthur Brooks can eat a plate of hot trash.” It went downhill from there.

Welcome to the world of hate-posters; the trolls who have infected all social media platforms and the comment sections of most publications. These are people who—usually anonymously—post inflammatory, insulting content on the internet that aims to upset others and disrupt conversations. You have no doubt encountered them in Instagram comments and Facebook groups. According to the Pew Research Center, 41 percent of Americans in 2020 said they were victims of some form of online harassment. The Cyberbullying Research Center reports that the percentage of adolescents who have experienced cyberbullying rose from 17 to 33 percent over the past decade.

It’s Monday, May 11. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Aidan Stretch breaks down the three-day Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. Will Rahn on why Trump’s long-awaited UFO files release raises more questions than it answers. Tyler Cowen on why the economy keeps defying expectations. And more.

But first: Spencer Pratt is surging. Could he actually win?

There’s “long-shot outsider,” and then there’s Spencer Pratt.

On January 7, the former star of reality TV show The Hills announced he was running for mayor of Los Angeles. It was a year to the day since he and his parents lost their homes in the Palisades fire, and the anger that had fueled a fight to help local families after the blaze would now be channeled into a bid for the biggest political job in America’s second-biggest city.

At first, his campaign seemed like an interesting sideshow to an all-too-familiar race between unpopular incumbent Karen Bass and the usual cast of Democrats. But in recent weeks, Pratt has emerged as a serious contender, and arguably the most interesting political candidate in the country right now. His campaign videos are going viral, he took the debate stage by storm last week, and he is rising in the polls and surging in prediction markets.

So: Can Spencer Pratt really win? And what does it say about Los Angeles—and California—that the Democratic party machine is now in a fight with a former reality TV star and registered Republican who was, until recently, happily running a crystal jewelry business with his wife? For answers to those questions, we turn to Peter Savodnik. He spoke to Pratt and the other movers and shakers in LA politics to make sense of Pratt-mania and what it says about his hometown. Don’t miss his piece.

—Oliver Wiseman

• Tehran presented its response to the United States’ peace proposal this weekend, according to Iranian state media. On Sunday, Trump said the proposal was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” without offering further details. The back-and-forth comes as scattered attacks across the Middle East cast doubt on the temporary ceasefire.

• On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff met with Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Miami to discuss an end to the war with Iran. The meeting was unexpected, as Al Thani was supposed to return to Doha after meeting with Vice President J.D. Vance in Washington on Friday.

• Virginia Democrats are launching an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the state Supreme Court struck down their redistricting plan on Friday. In a statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that his party plans to fight the decision “no matter what it takes.” (For more on the redistricting wars, read Charles Lane’s “Virginia Failed the Basic Test of Our Democracy.”)

• President Trump is set to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this week. The two-day summit will begin Thursday, where the two world leaders will discuss the war in Iran, trade policy, Taiwan, and more.

• The MV Hondius cruise ship began its evacuation process in Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday after suffering a hantavirus outbreak on board. The ship carried about 150 passengers and crew, three of whom died from the deadly virus. (For more on this, read Jillian Lederman’s ”Nothing Can Sink the Cruise Ship.”)

• New data from 67 major U.S. law-enforcement agencies show violent crime rates plunging across major categories in many of America’s biggest cities. The new numbers add to a sustained national decline in violent crime since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Most people with strong opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have never heard of the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939. That’s a problem, because it’s arguably the moment when the modern conflict took shape.

Historian and political analyst Oren Kessler spent five years researching this period, resulting in his book Palestine 1936, one of the only compr…

KYIV — On Friday, President Trump declared a three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine ahead of Russia’s “Victory Day” parade celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Moments later, a presidential decree appeared on Ukraine’s government website. “About the parade in Moscow,” the single-article statement read. “Allow a parade to be held on May 9, 2026, in the city of Moscow.”

The declaration was short but strong on symbolism. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky had spent last week threatening to disturb the celebrations with Ukrainian drones “buzzing” overhead. While he eventually agreed to Trump’s short ceasefire, the point of the Ukrainian statement was that it would be Kyiv, not Washington, dictating the terms.

While the front line of the Ukraine war remains a grinding stalemate, Kyiv’s confidence in setting its own war aims has increased as its long-range drones have brought the war deep inside Russia’s borders. Zelensky’s threats to the Victory Day parade were more than mere posturing.

For a little more than a month, the U.S. stock market has been on what looks like a historic tear. It recovered all its Iran war–linked losses, and kept on rising. Since the end of March, the S&P 500 is up about 16 percent—1.46 percent on Wednesday alone—and setting daily records.

If you spend your time immersed in political news, you will be tempted to wonder, “How can that be?” Isn’t the world falling apart? There is a war in the Middle East and oil prices have spiked, with no obvious resolution or endgame in sight, even if a peace deal is announced. America has a president who pursues policies, such as unpredictable tariffs and tighter migration restrictions, that are opposed by most economists, this writer included. Corruption is rising and the rule of law seems to be declining.

Taken all together, plenty of commentators have decided they just can’t make sense of the market’s climb. I have one very smart friend who, seeing all this bad news, decided to take the plunge and short the market—that is, bet that stocks will fall.

I don’t share this view. In fact, I believe today’s high stock prices are warranted. Stock prices can always decline, perhaps even tomorrow, but we can be bullish overall. The key is that if we look at the global picture, the good news outweighs the bad, though it garners fewer headlines.

At last week’s mayoral debate in Los Angeles, there were three competing visions of the city on offer. There’s Mayor Karen Bass’s Democratic theory of government, according to which things are pretty good. There’s City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s uber-progressivism, according to which the city is facing an affordability crisis that demands more “planning” and fewer cops. And then there’s former reality television star Spencer Pratt, and his rage against the machine.

Pratt, 42, grew up in the Pacific Palisades, which, once upon a time, was idyllic: beautiful Spanish revival and midcentury modern homes overlooking the ocean, pools and tennis courts, a very quaint “village” full of pricey boutiques. His father was a dentist; his mother didn’t work. He went to Crossroads, which was known as the hippy-dippy school for the children of famous actors and directors. (Jonah Hill was in his class.)

Pratt wanted, more than anything, to be rich, and he aspired to go to Wharton, but he lacked the grades. Instead, he forced his way into reality television—ultimately becoming the bad guy on the show The Hills, where he and his now-wife, Heidi Montag, were known as “Speidi.” After the show ended, in 2010, they launched an online business, Pratt Daddy Crystals, which sells crystals and jewelry, and he developed a thing for hummingbirds. Everything, according to Pratt, was perfect, until the horrific fire of January 2025, when their home and his parents’ home, both in the Palisades, were destroyed.